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rob denney

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  1. A bit of fun and a chance to win $500 on the Race Forum http://crew.org.nz/forum/index.php/topic/13087-win-a-day-on-bucket-list-or-500/
  2. I have posted this here rather than on the Multihulls page as a) the speeds required are just guesses and Bucket List is designed so that anyone who knows how to sail can race it. After any teething troubles are sorted out, Bucket List will be sailed upwind and reaching. The gps recordings will be shown on http://harryproa.com/?page_id=1620 Upwind: It will be sailed upwind for 5 minutes, shunted, then upwind on the other board for 5 minutes. What will be the distance between the start and finish points? Answer in nautical miles to two decimal places. eg, if it sails at 10 knots upwind and tacks/shunts through 90 degrees the distance between start and finish will be 1.17 nautical miles, Tacking angles less than 90 degrees will increase the distance. Reaching: It will be sailed on the fastest point of sail. What will be the max speed? Answer in knots to one decimal place. eg 23.6 knots. The location is the stretch of open ocean south of the Seaway, Gold Coast, Australia. 5 speed runs will be performed at varying windspeeds, at least one of them with the wind at The Spit weather station (http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/qld4.asp) reading over 20 knots. The prize is a days sailing (racing, cruising or just hooning around) on the prototype which would normally cost $AUS500. You can use it, cash it in after the boat’s first ‘charter’ or donate it to charity. The prize can be claimed on the Gold Coast or where ever the boat travels. The winner will be the person who gets closest to the upwind distance. In the event of a draw, the top speed will be used as a tie break. If more than one entry gets both numbers correct, they will all get a free day. One entry per email address. Your initials will be used in the "entrant name" column unless you ask for your name to be entered. Revise/update your entry as often as you like. Follow the rest of the build progress on the blog for updates on weights, launch date, etc. Your contact information may be used by us to email you updates on Bucket List. It will not be used for any other purpose. Please let us know if you don't wish to receive updates. Entries close the day of Bucket List's maiden sail. This is expected to be in August this year. For information on Bucket List see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttXu3pRTzs8 video explaining the boat http://harryproa.com/?page_id=1173 web page http://harryproa.com/?p=424 build blog Email your entry to harryproa@gmail.com and it will be added to the list at the bottom of http://harryproa.com/?page_id=1620 Feel free to add a comment or ask any questions.
  3. Best part of 5 years since I spoke about easy boat building at the club. Thought some of you might appreciate an update. The method has evolved to the stage where we can build without any cutting, grinding or sanding of cured laminate, no fairing or mould polishing and no hand laminating. The first complete boat to be built this way is the T60, a 7.5m long tender for the C60, which is currently being built by Ballotta in Peru. 90% of the C60 is built the same way, the rest using conventional methods. The time and cost savings are significant, the dust and mess reduction large. There is an explanation of the technique and an animation at http://harryproa.com/?page_id=1327 and a description of the C60 at http://harryproa.com/?page_id=1177
  4. HI, Does anyone know the dimensions of this mast, or where I can find them? It is for an 8m trailer sailor. Thanks in advance. rob
  5. Anchor dragged, blew ashore, bent the rudders, no other damage. Should be afloat later on today. Kinda one of mine. The owner bought a set of plans for a 15m strip planked version, then altered it to an 18m built from infused foam/glass flat panels. Sails at 80% of windspeed, (bunch of fixable things, including the bow shapes, which will improve this), cost less and took fewer hours than any other build method and does what the owner/builder wants. He had never owned a sail boat, went out on a few cats, thought the proa was a much better solution, so built one, including the unstayed rig. He has just fitted electric motors and solar panels, which cost about the same as the 60 hp outboard they replaced. Not as high a top speed, but superior in pretty much every other way. It is much more interesting having clients like this rather than ill informed clowns whose answer to someone in trouble is "I was thinking a match" There is more info on the boat in the 18m Proa Motor/Sailing thread on the harryproa chat group. http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/harryproa/ rob
  6. There are two methods. Presume you are talking about the one in the video. It is not like tortured ply as the panels are only bent in one direction. The sides are parallel for the middle 4 m of the 6m hull, and the ends squeezed together. The bulge at the bottom that this causes is either manipulated or cut off and replaced with polystyrene and glassed over. This is my preferred method as it acts as a very good collision bumper and inbuilt buoyancy. Where there is a sharp bend (gunwhales, seats, hull bottom, the foam is replaced with uni glass so that it bends to the correct radius. On this boat, the max radius (hull bottoms) is 200mm. Any bigger and I would infuse it with the foam in, but not the inner laminate, which would be added after the shape was formed. The mould method allows for much more shape in the hulls, but again, no compounding. The entire laminate and as much of the interior as possible is infused. It depends on the bend radii required and the amount of compounding. When we used KSS for the first proa hull, we left the skins off the foam below the waterline, bolted the ends together and inflated a full length plastic bag inside it. This blew the hull out to the required shape, which was very compounded (much more than is possible with ply). The exterior was then glassed to hold the shape and the interior glassed. The fairing required on this hull and those using his normal cut and shut method was only below the waterline and was more filling the weave than actual fairing. I have to admit that I am amazed that anyone in NZ (or anywhere else, I guess) would start building a multi without talking to Derek about build methods before they started. He does some amazing stuff, and has been for 50 odd years. If you are contemplating your own wing mast, you should talk to him about bending it up from a flat panel. He reckons he has all the laminates and layout sussed. Easier and less work than my plans, which are for the stock standard method of building a round mast. You might still want to talk to me about carbon, as we are getting some pretty good prices now that the mast business is ramping up. rob
  7. A beam with the "carbon look", 5.5 metres long, trampoline tracks, stainless inserts and compression tubes (the works), for a boat with righting moment of 7000 kg.metres is a paltry $Aus9500. $8,000 if you can live with it being painted. The "easy build method" statement has been made a lot of times, including by me about the system in the video. Do you know of a quicker way of building 95% of a hull, deck, bunks and cockpit than folding it up out of 3 sheets of material that took a week to lay up and laminate on a flat table? A bit more detail about the the moulded hulls statement above: 1) setting up a half proa hull and decks for infusion in a couple of days. This involves wiping a layer of release wax on the mould and and hot melt gluing the rebates in. Then cutting the foam and glass, using the hull as patterns. Then locating , and adding bulkhead/shelf landings, local reinforcements, mast step, beam housings, join blanks, etc. Then peel ply, vac bag and the infusion plumbing (2 vacuum lines along the edges, and a feed line down the middle). This all happens with dry material on a mostly horizontal surface, working downhand with little tailoring required for odd shapes and a wide flange on the verticals to tape the various dry layers to, so they stay in place. It is easy work compared to wetting out and bagging a conventional one off laminate which would normally be done in three stages (inner skin, core, outer skin), plus fairing on a male mould. Or stripping, fairing, glassing, fairing, turning over, fairing and glassing a strip plank hull. Then installing the bulkheads and fitting out and building and bonding the deck on. 2) 40 minutes to infuse the laminate, That is how long you have (with vinylester, can be more with epoxy, but it is a pretty big job that takes more than 40 minutes) before it starts to gel. If it doesn't happen within this time, you have not paid attention and need to do some repairs. 3) no contact with the sticky stuff after it is mixed. One of the wonderful things about infusion. The wet out is all done by pressure and is uniform, optimal and perfect. 4) a day to glue it together. Again, this is all you have as it must all be glued in one shot. This will involve contact with the sticky stuff, but only pumping it into male/female joins and wiping off the excess afterwards. 5) the fairness of the finished job. The hulls have no compound curves, so the lines all fair automatically using butt block joined mdf. 6) weight, cost and time savings. No secondary laminating, filling or fairing, no unnecessary doubled up laminate on any joins and all the laminate consolidated under vacuum will be lighter than conventional builds. These savings and maybe 5 kgs of wasted resin per infusion, almost no wasted cloth or core and mdf moulds will be cheaper. Weeks instead of months is certainly faster. Please let me know which steps you think won't happen as easily as predicted, and why. Ideally based on some of the builds you have seen. rob
  8. Build is on the Gold Coast. Builder is an excellent infuser, but has peculiar ideas about time. Owner is a German, but I get the boat for extended sea trials before it is shipped. State of play is that the lee hull is now closed up, the foam glass ends and paint to go. The guy is Derek Kelsall, the method KSS. One of the multihull pioneers and the most experienced and innovative foam boat builder in the world. 80 something year old pom, still going strong, currently living in Waihi. I copied what he has done with infused panels, and simplified it for harryproas which have much simpler hull shapes, eg no rocker and high prismatic, plus I don't care what they look like, as long as they work, and are as light and low cost as possible. There are no restrictions to shape, but the further you get from single curves, the more work you have to put in. This can be done post infusion, the way Derek does, or on the table (I have done small experimental bits, to prove the principal). Or it can be fudged, the way I do it on the actual boats. There is not a lot about the technique that isn't in the video. The bits that are missing (lying carbon tow for local reinforcement, infusion tricks, bow shaping) were thought of by the builder, so are not mine to disclose. Attend one of Derek's seminars and you will learn most of what you need to know. Or buy a sheet of glass and a vac pump and have a play. For anyone who has bucket and brushed, infusion is a wonderful world. Any specific questions, ask and I will try to answer. Since starting these hulls, I have changed my thinking on hull shapes. Flat bottomed hulls are quicker over 10 knots, a little slower under 5. More importantly to me they are lighter, lower and much easier to fit out. Because of this, I have altered the technique and now make the hull/deck in a single, simple mdf mould. The bulkhead and shelf landings, hull join, mast step, deck bearing, hinges, beam sockets, rudder sockets and all the reinforcing these require are included in the infusion. After the parts are infused, everything is glued together in matching male/female joins. The only fairing is a smear of bog in the tiny rebates at the joins. There is no secondary laminating apart from the 6" of foam/glass bows which are made off the job and glued on. After you have learnt the procedure with the first half hull, each half takes a couple of days. Of this time, only 40 minutes per infusion involves resin, and after the resin is mixed, you don't come in contact with it again until it is cured. Assembling the halves, including installing the bulkheads is another day's work. A light sand and they are ready to paint. The weight, cost and time savings are appreciable. Greg, Amateur mast building plans $500. Well worth it with carbon cheaper than it has ever been. We are also making them professionally, starting with the beams and masts for the Toro 34 and, more interesting, 6 unstayed wing masts that hinge just above the booms for 12m biplane rigged cruising cats. John, I am busting to see how it goes against other multis, both here and in NZ. Maybe a trip over will be part of the sea trials. The ww hull has a beam/length ratio of 1/12. Until it is going reasonably fast, (maybe 10 knots), it has less form drag than the lee hull which is 1/37 (Edmond Bruce, Design for Fast Sailing). Once it is going this fast, the crew sitting to leeward will fly the ww hull, so the form drag is not an issue. My experience with much less extreme differences in the hull widths is that it makes no practical difference. In much the same way as you do not notice any huge change in helm when you go from 2 hulls in the water to one flying. The Classe 50 multis (Crepes Wahoo, Prince de Bretagne, etc) which have a circuit consisting of round the buoys and short handed ocean races (Route de Rhum, etc) typically have - LOA 15.24 m / 50 ' - Beam 15m / 49.2' - Displacement 4.2 tonnes - Height above water 23.77m / 78' - Draft 3.5 m / 11.5' Sail Area - Main Sail : 100m² / 1076.5 ft ² - Gennaker : 150m² / 1615 ft² - Solent : 73m² / 786 ft ² - Staysail : 45m² / 484 ft ² - ORC : 22m² / 237 ft ² About all they have in common with the proa is loa and high speed. Take your pick of the numbers to decide which will be quicker. The proa will be sailing for well under $100,000. The tri for well over $1,000,000. Maintenance on the proa will be a similar order of magnitude less than the tri. rob
  9. A video my daughter put together using the construction photos of the professionally built 15m/50'ter that was started shortly after my talk and is discussed in this thread. Way behind schedule for various non boat reasons over which I have no control, but slowly coming together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5idbIo1 ... e=youtu.be rob
  10. The beams and spars are infused in one piece by Etamax in Adelaide. Build quality and finish are pretty good. Despite the aussie dollar being at an all time high and the cost of shipping, they were still the best option for a Canadian builder. rob
  11. I have a client who wants a foam/glass 10m electric power cat built in NZ. Anyone interested in building it, please email a resume, hourly rate, location etc to harryproa@gmail.com Thanks, Rob Denney www.harryproa.com
  12. Be surprised if it is the epoxy (10 years selling it, witnessed every concievable stuff up, not once was it a materials problem). Bloom would stop it adhering, but not inhibit the cure, and the first coat went off ok. Assuming the second coat of paint had thinners from the same can, I would be looking at the rags used to wipe it down before the second coat of paint (thinners can affect the material and the dye), the container the paint was mixed in (maybe not clean) and the brushes and what they were cleaned with between coats. Sounds unlikely, but could also be some contamination blown in from outside. We had this once with air borne silicone being blown in from the shed next door.
  13. ScottieE, So it does. Silly me. Not much help for the CC, or for getting out of NZ in a cruising proa. I'm happy to go round in circles on these points if you, The Rev or anyone else can add anything to the conversation. Samin, I got over W in the CC the same day Jason banned it, 12 years ago. You bought it up last week when you thought you could score some more cheap points. 18 months ago, you gave me a hard time about my version of the banning, said you would ask Jason whether my version of events was correct or not. You have piked out of answering ever since. As you know, my boat is pretty much built. Took 300 hours. Less than the difference between what you thought yours would take and what it actually has. As you also know, I am waiting for a 16m infusion table to be finished so I can build the mast. Then I have to wait some more while a couple of other boats are built on it. It is pathetic how you are polite to me when you want boatbuilding advice, yet can't resist the chance to put the boot in the rest of the time. Equally pathetic is that you know every little detail about your boat's weight when you want to make a point, but "can't be bothered working it out" when it doesn't suit. And how you are "off to work on your boat", then post on other threads. Why don't you just tell the truth? Let me help with some guesses. Your 88 kg hull is 8.5 long, 1m high at the bows, 4m from gunwh'l to gunwh'l in the middle and 1.5 g-g at the stern. Say 21 sq m. The ply bulkheads total maybe 4 sq m, so 25 sqm all up. Not so difficult, was it? rob
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